Omid Djalili's only just taken over as Fagin in Oliver!, but if producer Cameron Mackintosh wants to line up his next gangmaster, I've already done a bit of casting work for him. Brian Conley fancies picking a pocket or two. "I've always wanted to do it," he told me. "I was offered it once [in 1997], but I couldn't do it, so they got Barry Humphries in instead. But I'd love to do it now." Conley's due to begin a three-month run as Edna Turnblad in Hairspray, so perhaps next year he'll swap his greasy wig and scruffy housecoat for … well, a greasy wig and scruffy overcoat.

Another of Mackintosh's big productions, Les Misérables, has just celebrated a new cast change, but might some of the new signings be due for a sabbatical already? It's possible, according to the contracts they've signed. A source close to the cast says the new principals in the production have had to make provision for "a star" to take over their roles for up to six weeks this year. But what exactly constitutes "a star"? An old cast member? A celebrity name? Susan Boyle dreaming her dream on a West End stage? Nobody's quite sure – least of all the cast themselves. "We've got absolutely no idea," says our mole at Les Mis.

Over at the Playhouse, it looks like John Barrowman finally has his leading man. Come September, when everyone's favourite immortal time-traveller dons the drag of Zaza in La Cage aux Folles, Simon Burke will step into the shoes of his long-suffering other half, Georges. London theatregoers will know Burke from his time as Captain von Trapp in The Sound of Music, opposite Connie Fisher and Summer Strallen. In a bizarre coincidence, Burke – like the current Georges, Philip Quast – is Australian, an ex-children's TV presenter and appeared in the original Australian cast of Les Misérables. All bodes well, then.

Audiences don't expect to have to leave the theatre halfway through, spattered with gore, but that's what seems to have happened at the Watermill in Newbury over the weekend, when a slashed hand spurted blood throughout the Act One finale. Spend Spend Spend! is the tale of Pools winners Viv and Keith Nicholson, and the scene just before the interval shows them revelling in their their newfound riches. As the lead actor Greg Barnett (playing Keith) brandished his new golf club, it promptly snapped – slicing his hand and leaving pools of blood across the stage, the costumes and the front row. Like a true professional, Barnett carried on until the curtain came down, and was then whisked to casualty. The show, unfortunately, didn't go on and the audience was invited to come back another evening to see the second half. "The first act was marvellous, just stunning," one audience member told me, agreeing with the fantastic reviews the show has earned.